Legend about the Tower of silence

Legend holds that, in ancient times when the old lost their strength their family brought them to the top of the hill and left them to die.

Once, a young man whose name was Chilpik brought his father to the top of this hill. He stopped on the slope to rest, suddenly his father burst into laughter. The young man asked him: “Why are you laughing? I’m going to leave you here..” His father answered that once he also had brought his father to the same hill to leave him there and stopped at the same place.

At that point, this tradition seemed silly and unreasonable to the young man and he took his father back. At home he took care of his father keeping it in a secret for everyone, because if a man kept his elder parents they could get punished.

Some time later the ruler of these places got very sick. Healers from around the world came to help him but none of them could cure the king. Then Chilpik’s father told his son that if the king took a certain medicine made of certain herbs, he would recover. Chilpik came to the king and told him his father’s words.

The king began taking the medicines and soon got well. Then the king asked Chilpik where he could know of such a treatment when many famous physicians couldn’t pull him through his illness. Chilpik replied: “I committed a crime. If you have mercy on me, I’ll tell you my secret.” The king agreed and Chilpik told him that he learned about the recipe from his father whose life he had saved.

If Chilpik had left his father to die, following the law (tradition), then the secret of a healing medicine would have been lost and the king would have died. The king immediately ordered to cancel such a tradition.